Feeling Powerless

Greetings. Let's take a moment to talk a bit about feeling powerless. Today, in every country of the world, there are current events that can be extremely stressful. Oppression, discrimination, and injustice is present and amplified on the news, social media, and for many firsthand. Many of us may find ourselves in a situation where the overwhelming current events coupled with the everyday stresses of our lives are kind of stacking up and piling up one after another, and the result can be a feeling of being powerless. (water burbling) I think this feeling of being powerless is closely tied to the feeling of hopelessness, and in a way it's kind of understandable, right? We feel there's a desperate need for change, but there's no concrete example of what that looks like or even how to start. Or we may feel that the people that have more power than us to make those changes happen in our local and global communities, they just aren't performing up to par, or they have other agendas altogether. This can leave us in a space of feeling stuck. As a coping mechanism, we may try to push down these feelings and pretend that they don't exist, or we may try to numb out our own feelings because it's just too much to face them. But if we allow ourselves to just pause for a moment and fully accept that, yeah, I had zero control over that stressful event from occurring, that first step can be a game changer. It can prevent us from reacting in a maladaptive way. Unhealthy coping habits to drown out the feelings of powerlessness only make us feel worse in the long run. Sometimes we have to just sit in our uncomfortable feelings for a moment, feel everything there is to feel, and know that it's perfectly okay to have these feelings. This feeling of hopelessness can also easily arise if you perceive your actions as not being effective or enough. For example, protesters against social injustice may experience this feeling. Oppression continues to be a problem decade after decade. As a result, they may push themselves to do more and more, and before they know it they are burned out. To compensate for burning out, they once again push themselves extra hard to make change happen, and once again they burn out, and this unhealthy cycle just continues to repeat itself. So self-compassion is very important here, (bell ringing) and it's also so important to bring awareness to the fact that we can't do it all and every little bit helps. It's like the story of the man that encountered thousands and thousands of starfish stranded on a beach dying and he commenced to throw one starfish at a time back into the ocean. His son approached him and asked, "Papa, why do you continue to do this? "There are thousands and thousands of starfish. "It's not going to make a difference." The father throws another starfish into the...